(From another current WIP- Wages of Sin. This is my work, please do not take it as your own. Rights reserved and all that good stuff.)

“Priestess,” came a voice from behind her.

Jessalyn quickly shuffled her skirts into place, hiding the wretched stretch marks lining her legs. It simply wasn’t fair. She was no more than a twenty-five and had no children to speak of. Yet, here she was marred before her time.

Not that she, a celibate, had anyone to look good for. Not that she hoped such circumstances would ever change.

She shifted in her chair and smiled as her gaze fell on her quest. “Do come in!” She paused then colored. “Please forgive the state of my lodgings. It’s best that could be done being that we arrived on such short notice. Might I offer you some tea? Comes from out east you know, very soothing and well, it’s oh so very cold here.”

“No, thank you.” Her quest said, as she wavered in the door way. Jessalyn could not make out her facial features from the shadows that the woman’s tattered cloak splashed over her face, but the make of her build suggested she was not much younger and certainly not older than herself. And yet her clothes were very lived-in, very world-weary. If nothing else, her accent confirmed she was foreign to these parts. Most Imogeans spoke in a polished refined almost poetic way, something Jessalyn herself was still adjusting to.

“Oh nonsense,” Jessalyn said as she stood and trotted towards the pot. “We’ve really too much as it is.”

“I said ‘no thank you.'” The cloaked woman repiled.

Jessalyn smiled, and peered up. “You’re a native of Deserisle? I’m from there myself-my mother and I-we got out before the raid. Migrated to Russalk and stayed there for awhle but we’ve been all over really. You, stranger?” Jessalyn hardly paused at all before she began again. “Lord forgive me,it’s been so long since I’ve heard my own dialect.”

The woman swore. “Jessalyn, it’s me!” She reached up and yanked the hood of her cloak away. A tumble of blonde hair escaped, cascading over a face…

Jessalyn suddenly found it hard to breathe, and she vaguely registered the spoon hitting the dusty floor, spilling scalding hot tea on her exposed toes. The pain was nothing compared to her shock. Nothing compared to the pain of seeing that face.

The face she knew. The face she saw in every nightmare she’d ever had after the raids. The face that she had been told had been trampled in the onslaught. The face of her baby sister.

“Klara,” she breathed, fresh tears springing forth as her eyes probed every inch of her baby sis-no, this young woman’s- face. Her sister’s face had been open, warm and without markings. The woman who stood before her was pale, cold, and heavily scarred.

It couldn’t be. “Klara?” Jessalyn stepped forward, nearly running towards the younger woman, who tensed up and side stepped out of the way.

What…? Jessalyn’s heart sunk, then her eyes narrowed as she turned back to face the woman. “What is the meaning of this? Are you some wayward ghost possessing my sister’s memory?”

Klara’s frown deepened. “I wish it were that simple.”

Jessalyn tried again, but as soon as she moved, Klara stepped back. The priestess blinked back tears-now ones of rage instead of sorrow as her hands balled into fists at her sides. “We thought you dead for seventeen years. Now you stand before me and yet you will not allow me the reassurance-no, the piece of mind to know that you indeed live? What torture is this?!”

——————————————

In practice

Again, I’m reminded how fun playing with old characters are, and they’ve developed. Having boiled over in their wait for me to come back and finnish their story. Like a siren’s call. But I have to resist. For now.

Soon, though, I say.

TeacherBabe, my sister, is a Leo and she’s not concieted either. Her fiance, er, let’s call him Skyline, is also a Leo, and by damn if he isn’t the quietest, most modest guy I’ve ever met in my entire life. So just goes to show you, your sun sign doesn’t always determine who you are. It sure doesn’t, and shouldn’t, define you. We, as human beings, are much too complex for that.

Though that doesn’t mean that your sun sign is always wrong either though. Teacherbabe may not be concieted, but if anything (and I mean ANYTHING) bad happens, she’ll assume the fault. Sort of a roundabout self-absorbtion in a way.

Well, Any Questions? Comments? Want to put me in my place? Notice any Leo traits in your own Characters? Have at people, floors all yours.

———————–

* Motto of the Leo

** Title of a Song, taken from Born on a Rotten Day by Hazel Dixon-Cooper

** Wish I could take credit for this, but Linda Goodman’s excellent book on Sun Signs was the first to associated Alice in Wonderland quotes with the Zodiac. I picked the ones I liked the most of her selection.

Like this:

Related

Well, daughter #2 is All Leo, All The Time. 😀 Loud, attention grabbing — she’s been trying to upstage everyone since the day she was born, no joke.

What really worries me, though, is that I just noticed that both of my daughters have my sign listed under Best Adversaries… and each other’s sign listed under Preferred Allies… greeeeeaaaat… their teenage years should be reeeealy “interesting”… *head desk*

As for my own characters — and this is sort of freakin me out — Fenn is definitely a Leo, right down his static trait, which I figured out yesterday, is is hair/mane, which he cut off and keeps short (in a society where men typically have long hair, so yeah, it’s an attention grabber). 0.0 And he is probably the most self-centered character ever… !

Bethanie- Hah. If it makes you feel any better, my sign is under both my parent’s “worst enemy” lists. While my father and I don’t see eye-to-eye, my mother and I have always gotten along rather well. On the other hand, my sister “supposedly” makes great friends with my mother’s sign, but I remember quite a lot of arguing between them in TeacherBabe’s teen years. Not so much anymore, thank God, but I find it funny when a theory is disproven.

I’ll be crossing my fingers for you not to have two rebellious teens on your hands. 😉